Part 4 of 5 : Irkutsk- Beijing

AUTHORS
Fernanda Insua | Redacción Alpinismonline
Carlos Eduardo Gonzalez | Redacción Alpinismonline
Production date : August 2019

COVER PHOTO : MONGOLIA
A small, great country flanked by two monsters. That’s Mongolia. A country with ancient traditions is our next destination on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Two peasant children go about their daily chores on the plains north of Ulan Bataar, the capital of this wonderful region in central Asia, which shows us its customs and how a railway has also brought progress to the various villages lost in time.

A journey on the longest and most famous train in the world

The Rossiya. A train with more than a hundred years of history, where different cultures mix along its more than nine thousand kilometers of route. The Trans-Siberian is not just a tourist route. For decades it has been the only means of communication in a country with six time zones, a bridge between Europe and the Pacific. We take you on a dream trip. Let’s go to the Rossiya!Un viaje por el tren más largo y famoso del mundo

What VLADIVOSTOK left behind…it was incredible. The image of Vladimir Lenin displayed in the square in front of the great Trans-Siberian railway station, where the long journey of more than nine thousand kilometres and almost seven days of travel ended.

The city has strong ties to China. The notion that Vladivostok was once a Chinese city is a “myth” based on a misreading of evidence that some Chinese sometimes came to the area to fish and collect sea cucumbers before the Russians settled uninhabited hills around a natural harbor. The name the Chinese use for the city, Haishenwai, roughly translates to “sea cucumber bay,” although some historians believe the name is not Chinese but Manchu, the language of the court during the Qing dynasty, which ruled China from 1644 to 1911.

The city, with a population of about 600,000, is now a popular destination for Chinese tourists as well as merchants, who have turned a once-slumped market on Sportivnaya Street into a vibrant shopping district.

Now we will briefly travel through Russian territory for the last time and immerse ourselves in a new environment of the Trans-Siberian Railway. We will now call it Trans-Mongolian. We will travel along these plains, then bordering the Gobi Desert to enter another of the great ancient kingdoms, and then culminate our great journey in Beijing, formerly Peking or whatever you want to call it. Mongolia holds an important mystery for us. So let’s discover it.

Irkutsk – Ulan Udé

Crossing three vast countries, each as fascinating as the next, the train passes through the seemingly endless birch forests of Russia, skirting the stunning Lake Baikal and the jungles of the Siberian taiga, into a completely different world of steppes dotted with gers (traditional yurts) and the desolate Gobi Desert in Mongolia, before nature gives way to the cityscape and skyscrapers of Beijing.

We boarded the train in Irkutsk, but you can also board it in Ulan-Ude, where it splits off and takes the Trans-Mongolian route. In total, the journey from Moscow to Beijing takes six nights and five days, and covers 7,826 km. While you can make the trip straight away, don’t miss the chance to visit Mongolia. If you plan to make stopovers, plan ahead and arrange tickets accordingly, just as you would for any Trans-Siberian leg.

Let’s go to Mongolia then! Right now!

Naushki

Naushki is an urban-type settlement in Kyakhtinsky district in the Republic of Buryatia. It forms the urban settlement «Naushkinskoe» since 2006. The population is 2,944 people according to the 2017 census. It is believed that the name Naushki comes from the Buryat word oshig, meaning «light, weathered rocks». According to another popular version, the name is connected with the existence of customs on the trade route, about which merchants who did not want to pay a fee informed each other «by ear», and that not far from here there is another pass that is not controlled by the authorities.

The village is located on the right bank of the Selenga River, 250 km south-west of Ulan-Ude, in the border zone, three kilometers from the border with Mongolia. Naushki is the westernmost settlement in the Kyakhta region. The distance to the district center, the city of Kyakhta is 35 km.

In the village, the Naushki station of the East Siberian Railway is a transit border station on the Ulan-Ude – Ulan-Bator trunk line.

Since the time of the Treaty of Kyakhtinsky in 1727, the Ushkinsky guardhouse on the border of Russia and the Qing Empire has existed on the site of the present village. Later, the village of Kirillovka appeared. In 1939, the construction of the Ulan-Ude – Naushki railway line of the East Siberian Railway was planned. In 1949, the first train to Ulan Bator passed through the station. On October 4, 1954, it was assigned the status of an urban-type settlement, and on April 2, 1963, the village of Naushki was included in the Gusinoozersky Municipal Council. Since 1965, the village was withdrawn from the subordination of the Gusinoozersky Municipal Council and included in the Kyakhta district.

NAUSHKI THIS IS HOW WE GOODBYE TO RUSSIA! (Photo: Sputniknews)

Sukhbaatar

The city was built in 1940 on the banks of the Selenga and Orkhnon rivers. The city is named after the Mongolian military leader Suhbaatar. Today it is the capital of the Selenge province (aimak) with a total population of 20,000. Located on the Mongolian side of the border.

There are some precautions to take when crossing the border. All luggage is always carefully inspected. Do not take any photos at this point, because if you are seen doing so, your camera may possibly be confiscated. The stop is approximately 90 minutes to 3 hours, depending on the train.

Once the train gets underway at Sukhbaatar, raise the blinds on your cabin to witness a dramatic change in scenery as you catch your first glimpse of Mongolia: rolling mountains, wild horses running alongside the train, and nomadic gers along the open steppe.

Darkhan

Darkhan is the second largest city in Mongolia and the capital of Darkhan-Uul Aimag (Darkhan-Uul Province). It has a population of 97,000.

On October 17, 1961, the city of Darkhan was built with extensive economic assistance from the Soviet Union. As its name implies, the city was originally conceived as a manufacturing site for the territory of northern Mongolia. The city remains a primarily industrial region and is home to approximately 82% of the population of Darkhan-Uul Province. As with most urban Mongolia, about 86% of the city’s population lives in residential apartments, with the remainder of the population living in yurts (gers) on the outskirts of the city.

Darkhan has a borderline humid continental climate, close to the more typical subarctic climate of northern Mongolia found in higher areas near the city, and just humid enough to avoid qualifying as a semiarid climate. These three climate types tend to overlap a lot in the border regions of Mongolia, Russia, and Kazakhstan. This area has extremely cold and dry winters; however, summers are warmer and more humid.

Kharagiin Monastery is located in a beautiful log cabin in the Old Town; it has recently been reactivated as a Buddhist monastery. In addition, the town is home to the Darkhan-Uul Museum. This museum, also called the Traditional Folk Art Museum, contains a collection of archaeological finds, traditional clothing, religious artifacts, and taxidermy.

The city has a monument to the horse-head fiddle (morin khuur), the iconic national instrument of the Mongols.

Darkhan is the second largest educational center in Mongolia, which makes the educational level of the city’s population very high. Hundreds of students come to Darkhan from other parts of Mongolia to study. Currently in Darkhan Uul Aimag there are 10 higher education institutions, 25 secondary schools, 14 kindergartens, the Institute of Management and Development, the Regional Business Development Center and the Research Institute of Agricultural Training and Plant Science.

Ulan Baatar

Ulaanbaatar or Ulan Bator is the capital and most populous city of Mongolia. The city is an independent municipality and is not part of any other province. Located in the north of the country, slightly east of central Mongolia, the city lies in the valley formed by the Bogdh Khan, Songino Khairkhan, Chingeltei and Bayanzurkh mountains and crossed by the Tuul River, at an altitude of 1,350 meters. It is the cultural, industrial and financial center of the country, as well as a transport hub connected by road to the largest cities in Mongolia and by rail to the Trans-Mongolian and Chinese railway systems.

Founded in 1639 as a centre for Buddhist monasteries, in the 20th century it developed into a major manufacturing centre characterised by wide boulevards and squares and mid-20th-century Soviet-style architecture.

It consists of a Soviet-style central district surrounded and interspersed with concrete residential towers and yurts. It is the cheapest Asian capital for foreign workers.

Ulaanbaatar has had numerous names throughout its history. Between 1639 and 1706, it was known as Örgöö meaning residence, usually transliterated as Urga, and between 1706 and 1911 its name was Ikh Khüree, Da Khüree or simply Khüree, translated as «the great». Its Chinese name was always Kulun. After the country’s independence in 1911, under secularist rule, the city was renamed Niislel Khüree. In 1924 its name was changed to Ulaanbaatar, meaning «red hero» in the Mongolian language, in honour of the Mongolian national hero Sukhe Bator, who had defeated the troops of Ungern von Sternberg and the Chinese army, fighting with the support of the Red Army; a statue erected in his honour adorns the main square of Ulaanbaatar. The name Urga continued to be used in Europe and North America until the 1920s. In 1940, the Cyrillic alphabet was introduced in the country, with its own phonetic definition.

Rock paintings from the Bronze Age (about 3,000 years ago) were found on the northern slope of Mount Bogd Khan Uul. These paintings show human figures, horses, eagles and abstract designs such as horizontal lines and large corners with more than a hundred dots on them. The same style of painting was found near the town of Hövsgöl and in southern Siberia, indicating a common nomadic culture in the area. On the same slope of the mountain, a 13th-century rock painting of a Mongolian woman wearing a traditional hat can be seen.

North of Ulaanbaatar are the great cemeteries of the Xiongnu, which are more than 2,000 years old. The Ulaanbaatar area was present in nomadic empires such as the Xiongnu, Xianbei, Rouran, Gokturk, Uighur, Khitan and the Mongol Empire. The remains of the palace of Wang Khan Toghrul of the Keraites were found near the city, in the Black Forest on the Tuul River.

Ulaanbaatar was founded in 1639 as a monastery town called Urga, which prospered in the 1860s due to its position as a trading hub between Russia and China.

By the early 20th century, the city had a population of 25,000, of whom about 10,000 were Buddhist monks or monastery workers. In 1911, with the Qing Dynasty in China heading for total collapse, Mongolia’s leaders met in secret to try to end three centuries of Chinese rule. On 29 December 1911, the Bogd Khan declared the country’s independence under the name Mongolia. As Khüree was the seat of the Jebtsundamba Khutugtu was the logical choice for the capital of the new state. However, at a conference between Russia and China in 1914, Mongolia was designated an autonomous region of China, and in 1919, in the face of opposition from the Bogd Khan and in accordance with the terms of that conference, Urga was occupied by Chinese troops who reasserted control over Mongolia.

In 1921 the city changed hands twice. First, in February 1921, a force consisting of Russians, Tibetans and Mongols under the name of the White Movement and led by the Russian warlord Baron Roman Ungern von Sternberg captured the city, freeing the Bogd Khan from prison and killing most of the Chinese garrison. The capture of Urga was followed by a frenzy of looting, murder and the massacre of the small Jewish community living in the city. On 22 February 1921, the Bogd Khan was once again crowned Khan of Mongolia in Urga. However, while Baron Ungern was taking control of Urga, a force led by Damdin Sukhbaatar was being formed in Russia with Soviet support, and would cross the border in March. Ungern and his men set out in May to confront them, but suffered a disastrous defeat in June. Two months later, the communist Russo-Mongol army became the second force to conquer Urga in six months. On 29 October 1924, the city was renamed Ulaanbaatar in reference to Sukhbaatar, who had died earlier that year.

During the socialist period, and especially after World War II, most of the old Mongolian-style buildings were replaced by Soviet-style apartment blocks, largely financed by the Soviet Union. The Trans-Mongolian Railway stop at Ulaanbaatar, linking Moscow and Beijing, was completed in 1956, and cinemas, theatres, museums, etc. were built there. Furthermore, many of the city’s pre-socialist temples and monasteries were destroyed in the wake of the anti-religious movement of the late 1930s.

En Ulán Bator se originaron las manifestaciones que provocaron la revolución democrática de Mongolia, que fue el inicio de su transición a la democracia y la economía de mercado. El 10 de diciembre de 1989, los manifestantes pidieron que Mongolia aplicara la perestroika y el glásnost en su sentido pleno y los dirigentes disidentes exigieron la celebración de elecciones libres y la reforma económica. El 14 de enero de 1990, las protestas pasaron de estar formadas por unas doscientas personas a unas mil que se reunieron en el Museo de Lenin en Ulan Bator. Una manifestación en la Plaza de Sukhbaatar el 21 de enero, a una temperatura de -30 °C, seguida posteriormente de las manifestaciones de fin de semana en enero y febrero provocaron que se llevara a cabo la formación del primer partido mongol de la oposición. El 7 de marzo, diez disidentes se reunieron en la plaza Sukhbaatar y se pusieron en huelga de hambre. Miles de seguidores se unieron a ellos, a los que también se unieron los que llUlaanbaatar was the site of the protests that led to Mongolia’s democratic revolution, which marked the beginning of its transition to democracy and a market economy. On 10 December 1989, protesters called for Mongolia to implement perestroika and glasnost in their full sense, and dissident leaders demanded free elections and economic reform. On 14 January 1990, protests grew from around 200 to around 1,000 people who gathered at the Lenin Museum in Ulaanbaatar. A demonstration in Sukhbaatar Square on 21 January in temperatures of -30°C, followed by weekend demonstrations in January and February, led to the formation of Mongolia’s first opposition party. On 7 March, ten dissidents gathered in Sukhbaatar Square and went on a hunger strike. Thousands of followers joined them, who were also joined by those who arrived on March 8, and the crowd became so large that it was unmanageable; seventy people were injured and one person was killed. On March 9 the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party was forced to relinquish power. The new government announced that the first free elections would be held in July; curiously, the elections were won by the communists by a wide margin.

Since Mongolia’s transition to a market economy in 1990, the city has experienced a great deal of growth, mainly due to internal immigration. A large part of these new citizens live in yurt neighbourhoods, as the construction of new apartment blocks fell sharply in the 1990s. Due to this growth, the city’s population has doubled to one million, which is about 40% of the country’s entire population. This causes a number of social, environmental and transport problems. In recent years, the construction of new buildings has gained new momentum, especially in the city centre, where prices have skyrocketed.

In 2008, the city was the scene of civil unrest after the Democratic Party, the Civil Movement Party and the Republican Party claimed fraud14? in the parliamentary elections, which were won by the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP). The party headquarters was set on fire by protesters, five people were killed and more than 300 (including civilians and police) were injured during the police’s suppression of the riots. However, the elections were declared free and fair by international observers.

Chojr

It is the capital of Govisümber Province in the central-eastern part of the country. It was a military base during the Soviet period. In 1989, Soviet anti-aircraft missile units left the city. Mongolia’s longest runway, now abandoned, lies 25 km N of Chojr, a relic of that period. In 1992, the military cantonment came under the jurisdiction of Govisümber Province, in accordance with the 1992 constitution. Near the railway station there is a statue commemorating Mongolia’s first cosmonaut, Jügderdemidiin Gürragchaa.

It is located in the Chojr Depression, a strip of lowland about 150 km long and 10 to 20 km wide, about 500 m lower than the surrounding highlands. It lies at an altitude of 1,269 m.

It has a semi-arid climate with hot summers and very cold winters. Most of the precipitation falls in summer as rain, with some snow in the adjacent months of May and September. Winters are very dry.

Together with Darkhan and Erdenet, it is one of three autonomous cities in Mongolia. It has a medium-security prison that can hold 460 prisoners.

It is located along the Trans-Mongolian Railway, 250 km southeast of Ulan Bator.

Dzamin Ude

A town with about 12,000 inhabitants located on the border with China. The real name of Dzamin Ude comes from the ancient settlement Dzamiin Üüde located 101 kilometers northwest of the current location.

The city lies on the ancient trade route between Beijing and Ulan Baatar, and is now the most important border crossing between Mongolia and the People’s Republic of China. Border control counted more than 950,000 border crossings in 2004. In April 2007, construction began on a 432-kilometer paved road from Chojr to Dzamin Ude, which was completed in 2013.

It has a cold desert climate with very hot summers and very cold winters. Most of the precipitation falls in summer as rain, with some snow in the adjacent months of May and September. Winters are very dry.

The Gobi desert

The Gobi Desert is a large desert region located between northern China and southern Mongolia. It can be considered one of the largest and most important deserts, or desert areas, in the world. It is surrounded by the Altai Mountains and the Mongolian steppes to the north; the Tibetan Plateau to the southwest; and the North China Plain to the southeast. The Gobi is made up of different geographic and ecological regions, based on their variations in climate and topography. The climatic origin of this desert is due to a large orographic shadow.

Historically, the Gobi Desert is notable for having been part of the Mongol Empire and for being the location of several important cities along the Silk Road, now connected by roads and tracks. It is crossed by the Trans-Mongolian Railway, which links Ulaanbaatar to Beijing.

Covering 30% of the country’s territory, Mongolia’s Gobi Mountains include capricious mountains, sand dunes, vast plateaus, steppes with their aromatic herbs and, of course, a very diverse animal world.

Archaeologists and paleontologists have excavated in the Nemegt Basin in the northwestern part of the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, which is known for its fossil treasures, including prehistoric mammals, dinosaur eggs and prehistoric stone tools, some 100,000 years old.

In its most widely accepted definition, the Gobi includes the long stretch of desert and semi-desert extending: on the east from the foothills of the Pamir Mountains, 77°E, west to the Greater Khingan Mountains, 116–18°E, on the border of Manchuria; and on the north from the southern foothills of the Altai, Sayan, and Yablonoi mountain ranges, south to the Kunlun, Altyn Tagh, and Qilian Mountain ranges, which form the northern edges of the Tibetan Plateau.

A relatively large area on the eastern side of the Greater Khingan Mountains, between the upper reaches of the Songhua River and the upper reaches of the Liao River, is also sometimes conventionally considered to belong to the Gobi. Some geographers and ecologists prefer to consider only the western part of the Gobi region, with the Tarim Basin in China’s Xinjiang Province and the desert basins of the Lop Nor and Hami (Kumul) as another separate and independent part called the Taklamakan Desert.

The Gobi is over 1,610 km long from southwest to northeast and about 800 km long from north to south. The desert widens in the west along the line between Lake Bosten and Lop Nor (87-89°E). In 2007 it comprised an arc of 1,295,000 km²,1 making it the fifth largest desert in the world and the largest in Asia. Much of the Gobi is not sand, but bare, exposed rock.

The climate of the Gobi Desert is extreme, combining rapid temperature changes not only throughout the year, but also within 23 hours (changes that can be as much as 40 °C (89 °F).

Even in southern Mongolia temperatures often drop to –32.8 °C (–27 °F), while in Ala-shan they rise to 37 °C (98.6 °F) in July.

Average winter lows are around –40 °C (–40 °F), while summer temperatures range from moderate to hot, with highs of 45 °C (113 °F). Most of the precipitation falls during the summer.

Although the southeast monsoons reach the eastern regions of the Gobi, the entire area is characterized by extreme aridity, especially during winter. This is due to the ice and snow storms that occur during spring and early summer.

The Gobi is the source of some of the most important fossil finds in history, including the first dinosaur eggs.

The desert and surrounding regions provide food for many animals, including the Persian gazelle, the marbled polecat and the plover. Occasionally, the area is visited by snow leopards, brown bears and wolves. A number of drought-adapted shrubs such as Salsola passerina and Artemisia cana and low-growing grasses such as Stipa sp. (esparto grass) and Cleistogenes squarrosa are also prominent.

The area is vulnerable to cattle and off-road vehicle traffic (human impact is greater in the eastern part of the desert, where more rain falls and livestock can therefore be supported). In Mongolia, grazing areas have been reduced by the raising of cashmere goats by nomadic herders. Economic trends towards the privatisation of livestock and the collapse of the urban economy have led to people returning to rural lifestyles, a movement that is contrary to urbanism and has led to an increase in the number of nomadic herders and livestock raising.

The desert is in a state of expansion, due to a combination of factors, including population growth and increased economic activity, overgrazing and prolonged drought, which have contributed to the expansion of the Gobi Desert’s surface at a rate of three kilometres a year. In an attempt to stop the desert’s advance, the Chinese government is implementing a Green Wall, a large-scale afforestation project that is expected to be completed by 2074, when it will reach a length of 4,500 kilometres.

Erlyan

The city is a mandatory stop on the Trans-Mongolian Railway, as international trains must change their bogies due to the different track gauges of the Mongolian and Chinese railway networks.

The Mongolian railway network (like the Russian one) uses a track gauge of 1520 mm, while the Chinese railway network uses a track gauge of 1435 mm.

Erlyan or Eren Hot is also the northern terminus of China National Highway 208 (Eren Hot – Changzhi). The city benefits greatly from border trade with Mongolia.

Currently, bogie changes on trains are carried out manually, but this is expected to be supplemented by the SUW 2000 automatic system.

Datong

Datong is known as the city of Phoenix and coal. It is a prefecture-level city in Shanxi Province, People’s Republic of China. It is located at 1,040 meters above sea level in the Datong Basin, west of Beijing. Its area is 2,080 km² and its total population is 3.3 million.

The city was founded as Pingchéng during the Han Dynasty, around 200 BC. Given its location between two branches of the Great Wall of China, Datong was a key outpost to stop the invasions of barbarian peoples from the north. However, the city’s defensive function was not very effective and in 386 one of these peoples, the Tuoba, took the city and founded the Northern Wei Dynasty. The city was the capital of this dynasty until 495. The role of border city was returned to Datong by Genghis Khan, who conquered it in 1211. It received its present name in 1048.

In 1958, Datong County was created, in 1964 it was classified as a prefecture-level city, and in 1993 the city obtained its current division.

The Wei Dynasty built grottoes for Buddhist worship around the city. The 53 grottoes of Yungang Shiku were built between 460 and 525 and contain more than 50,000 sculptures that have made the city a tourist attraction. They were declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2001.

Datong lies in a basin and its urban area is surrounded by mountains, the Yuhe from north to south and can be divided into three sections, the southern mountains with an average elevation of 1,714 m where the main coal deposits exist, the central mountains, with an elevation not exceeding 1,417 meters and the mountains of the northern mountain range with steep slopes.

Beijing

And finally… we are in Beijing. After 7817 kilometers from Moscow. And what can we say about Beijing, Moscow, the Trans-Mongolian, Ulan Bator…

Just like we did in Vladivostok, more than just seeing it. That will be enough.

Alex Drone you guys …

Trans Mongolia … by Alex Drone …

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